Martyn and Candace’s parents are campaigning for change (Picture: Supplied)Candace Lightner and Figen Murray have lived out every parent’s worst nightmare – the loss of a child. To compound their grief, both of their children’s deaths were completely avoidable.Here, Candace and Figen share their stories of how they fought through their devastation to campaign for lifesaving change, while Metro honours some of the other mums who have made a difference in memory of their children.
‘I didn’t lose my daughter, she was taken from me’Cari Lightner was just 13 when she was killed by a drunk driver as she walked home from school. The teenager was hit from behind, thrown 125 feet in the air and left with a broken neck in the road. The man behind the wheel didn’t stop to help or tell anyone what he did.
He instead went home, told his wife ‘not to look at the car’ and passed out drunk. ‘I don’t like the term “lose”. I didn’t lose Cari.
She was taken from me,’ her mum Candace Lightner tells Metro from her home in Virginia, USA. ‘When a child dies, in my opinion, it’s the worst death, the worst experience, the worst tragedy, the worst trauma that a parent can deal with.’ Following Cari’s death, Candace’s grief quickly turned to blind rage when she discovered four days after the collision that her daughter’s killer had prior drunk driver convictions.
Cari (right) with her twin sister Serena and little brother Travis (Picture: Supplied)Spotting a p.
